


Lightning Bolt, April 7, 1970

by MissAtomicBomb77



Series: For the Greater Good, Let's Do the News [2]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you would have told Charlie Skinner a few days ago that he would be laying on top of a beautiful woman in an active minefield, he would have laughed at you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning Bolt, April 7, 1970

April 7, 1970  
03:16pm  
North, Northwest Highway Four  
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

If you would have told Charlie Skinner a few days ago that he would be laying on top of a beautiful woman in an active minefield, he would have laughed at you. He would have out right laughed, probably holding his stomach with his hands, with an errant tear escaping from his eye. Perhaps he would ask for a hit of the joint you were surely smoking once he caught his breath because of the sheer ridiculousness of the scenario. There was inherent danger in what he did, of course, but he had paid his dues of being put in danger by others, thank you very much. He’s allowed to trust his instincts now and indulge in his own gross self-interest and self-preservation. 

Yet, here he was and there she was, his weight pressed against her as he shielded her from the unexpected detonation from somewhere behind them, dirt and rocks falling from the sky. He thinks that perhaps it was her helmet, it also could have been an animal of some sort, but he was not about to go look. Their faces are buried in each other’s stomachs now and after a moment he lifts his body so he can look at her face. She’s in shock and for this he’s thankful, Charlie is completely unsure what he’d do if she was crying. He doesn’t know this woman at all and he had no idea how she was going to react. She seems lucid and they are going to get the hell out of there.

Then he’s going to punch the idiot that brought her here square in the face.

At least she’s dressed for it. Some of the female reporters he’s met treat this like a vacation in their white pants and pink blouses. Not this woman, she’s actually dressed in hand me down fatigues. She reminds Charlie of a few of the female Cambodian soldiers he’s met; the clothes are ill-fitting, but they succeed in doing what they are supposed to, make her blend in and not call attention to her. However he understood her desire to wear a helmet with that golden hair. It’s firmly in place, hidden under a black scarf or something. That is very much an attention getter. 

“Vous allez bien?” Are you alright? He asks her. She nods. “Comment vous appellez-vous?” What’s your name? 

“Lee,” she responds. 

“Parlez-vous anglais?” Do you speak English? 

“Oui.” She says to him.

“Thank God,” he says. Charlie knows enough French, but he’s not really focused on his linguistic prowess at the moment. He hopes her English is strong. “Is anything broken?”

“No,” she says, and he can see herself mentally accessing her condition and where she was.

“I’m going to get up slowly. Do not move yet, okay?” Charlie looks back up the hill and the men are watching him with care. Phat, his friend and translator that drove one of the jeeps here is manning the rope that is tied around Charlie’s waist, taking care that it was not dragging on the ground. He nods up at them and they know that he’s going to start to move.

She nods and he slowly pulls himself off her and the ground. The road was above them, not too far and really, they were only about twenty feet from the road, and it was just the angle. He understood why they stopped there, an overlook on the field. It was just miserable luck on her part that is where they were because when she fell, it sent her deeper into the minefield that if she had just stumbled off the road. He saw her disappear down the hill, but had no understanding how she fell and landed where she was until he decided to go down for her.

It was a minor miracle that she didn’t find a mine on her way down and that she didn’t break a limb in the process. The skid marks that he can make out makes him think she may have actually tucked and rolled before she landed in a sort of splat in the field. Charlie makes his way to his knees and now he’s looking down over her, their faces upside down.

This is when Lee really notices him for the first time. He’s got this dark beard and for a long second she thinks that he’s an old man until she sees his eyes, they aren’t blue, that’s all she can tell. Brown, hazel, golden? She doesn’t know what the word is, but she can see that they are young. They’re darting around a little he’s very much working, not looking at her to take advantage, but assessing. She wonders for a second what they would look like if they stopped and really looked at her. 

“I’m going to pull you into my lap slowly,” he tells her.

She nods as his arms creep under her armpits and he pulls her up slowly so that her back is now pressed against his chest. He doesn’t let go, he’s holding her in place against him. She’s lost her view of him and now she sees the field out in front of her, a strange innocence to it. His voice is suddenly in her ear and she involuntarily shudders as he speaks. She doesn’t expect to hear him there and he’s hushed now, even though he’s not sharing any kind of secret. 

“We’re going to stand, together, slowly and we’re going to slowly walk backwards as far as we can. The guys are going to pull you back up the hill with the rope, okay?”

She nods, almost feverishly and as he slowly rises and steps back. She looks down at her own feet to follow his steps.

Charlie’s head is turned back so he can follow the path back. She’s watching her every step and they are both fighting the instinct to run, Lee now especially because the shock is giving way to fear. She’s going to focus on the task at hand and unlike the man that brought her here, she trusts this man that’s leading her to safety. She can’t even explain it, but she does. She trusts him, implicitly and this keeps the fear from overwhelming her. It seemed like a lifetime, whereas it was only a few minutes before he stops.

“Don’t move.” Charlie tells her and he slowly releases her and her body sinks just a little. He starts to undo the rope around his waist and loops it around her waist.

She had no idea that his grip was that tight on her and she suddenly misses it. She watches as his hands are around the front of her, moving a rope across her waist. Lee thinks for an instant that he has great hands they don’t seem to betray if he’s nervous. She feels the rope tighten his hands follow it around just to be sure. Then she feels them tighten at her waist and before she can even formulate an opinion on it, he’s lifted her and turned so that now she’s facing the hill and sees Phat and her driver grab on the rope.

“Grab on to the rope, walk up the hill, follow the skid marks,” Charlie tells her. 

She looks back at him and nods. She wants to see him for one more moment. Once she turns, she can feel the tug on the rope from the men above and she moves.

“Not too fast fellas,” Charlie barks. 

In a few moments and with only one slip, she’s back up on the road. Her driver undoes the rope and flings it back down to Charlie and he scales up the hill rather quickly.

Lee is leaning up against the body the jeep as her companion, who was rather shell shocked the entire time is trying to talk to her. She holds her right hand to him in an effort to silence him as she watches Charlie come up over the hill. She lets out a breath that she doesn’t know she was holding. Charlie comes up to her, his arms find her arms at her shoulders, and he caresses them gently. 

“You okay Lucky Lee?” He smiles wide now and it reaches his eyes as they crinkle ever so slightly. 

She smiles back as the reporter that brought her here tries to interfere with the moment. He’s a small guy this reporter from UPI, in fact, he and Lee about equal height. He’s trying to get her attention and she’s sure that somewhere in his words there was an apology, but she just wanted to know more about the man that just saved her life.

Lee turns and her right fist connects squarely with the UPI reporter’s jaw. It took him by surprise and he bounced off the side of the jeep and slumps to the ground.

Charlie had jumped back as he saw she was swinging her arm. Once she landed the punch, she grabs her hand right away. Delivering that punch hurt but in her mind it was so worth it.

“Okay.” Charlie says, looking at the guy rolling on the ground before looking at Phat. “I think we’re done here.” He looks at Lee now. “Do you want to ride with us?”

She nods and Charlie’s hand finds the small of her back and gives her a gentle push to follow Phat. He looks in the nearby jeep and sees a handbag, obviously hers. He reaches in and grabs it, then follows quickly behind. 

Charlie and Lee climb into the back of the other jeep, Phat starts it up and soon they’re on the move.

“My name is Charlie Skinner,” he tells her.

She leans her back into his chest as she holds her punching hand. “Lee Lefebvre.”

His arm naturally wraps around her as they ride.

She doesn’t mind.


End file.
